


Living the Dream

by AphantaRay



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Years Later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:02:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23425948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AphantaRay/pseuds/AphantaRay
Summary: It's two years after the Cleave and Star is only months away from graduating high school - but she's not ready to accept the future her mom has planned out for her. With Marco's help, she's going to figure out what she really wants to do with her life, and nothing is going to stand in her way.Well, maybe afewthings.
Relationships: Star Butterfly/Marco Diaz
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Living the Dream

Star’s morning routine of lethargically scrolling through her feed for an hour before she had to crawl out of bed for school was interrupted today by a particularly jarring post. It was Janna. She had framed her acceptance letter to ECU’s Anthropology program and posted a photo of the document hanging proudly on her wall. And she’d put it right next to some other unimpressive awards, like a certificate for being some science fair’s ‘Most Participant’. (What did that even mean?)

It would’ve been pretty typical for Janna to post something like that ironically, but from the congratulatory comments, it seemed like no one could tell. Even Star knew that ECU was supposed to be a pretty easy school to get into, so yeah, it was probably just a dry joke.

But it wasn’t the unappreciated weird humor that made the post so bad. It was jarring because it made Star feel like she had just been dropped off a cliff and her stomach had been shoved right up into her lungs. Janna Ordonia, force of chaos, evasive and unpredictable, relentlessly fighting against the system – she, of all people, had a plan for next year. In fact, now that Star was looking for it, it seemed like most of her classmates were celebrating the impending end of high school and bragging about whatever college they were going to, or countries they were backpacking in, or non-profits they were interning at.

Star put away her phone. That was a little too much of seeing her friends getting hyped up about going their separate ways.

She buried her face in her pillow and grumbled to herself, “Why is everyone so pumped about this?”

She’d never had more fun in her life than the few years she’d had at Echo Creek Academy. And it was all going to disappear in a couple months. Mewmans weren’t allowed to stay in America indefinitely, not even ones from royal families. So off she’d go, back to the castle, back to being princess to a matriarchy she didn’t even believe in, all because her mom made her promise. In was a hard-fought compromise, too. Her mom gave her just two more years to finish high school with her friends, and after that it would be time to stop ‘messing around’ and to ‘take her responsibilities as princess seriously’.

Her mom’s impassioned lecture rang through her mind. “ _Just because the Kingdom is scattered doesn’t mean we can abandon our people in their time of need. And they have never needed us more than now_.”

And Star had to agree – not with her mom’s belief that the ‘age of queens’ wasn’t quite over yet, because that was just arrogance. But she was right that the people of the Butterfly Kingdom deserved a capable leader – especially with all the uncertainty floating around about the legitimacy of mewman sovereignty over their own land.

But maybe Star wasn’t that leader. Maybe Star shouldn’t _be_ that leader, after all the times she tried and messed up. Maybe she’d be better at something else entirely.

Like, all these things her classmates were doing, they were all so different, so interesting, so impossible for her as a citizen of Mewni – especially as an heir to the throne. But there was a whole world of possibilities that opened up when the two worlds collided. And what, Star was supposed to just pretend like nothing had changed and do whatever her mom said was best? She wanted options, darn it. She’d never stopped wanting options.

And while it was a huge bummer that her friends were all going their separate ways soon, maybe it would be nice for Star to get in on that and just go out into the world, do something exciting, do something no one in her family had ever done before. Maybe she could convince her parents to let her take a year before she came back for real. Just one more year.

She got cleaned up and dressed and went downstairs for a quick breakfast. The dining room was as empty as usual. Her parents were always just a little too busy with running the kingdom to sit down and eat with her anymore. Somehow even at eight in the morning, they needed to be at meetings and overseeing projects. She never saw them in evening either since she was usually hanging out with Marco. She’d be lucky to catch them on the weekend. And for some reason, it was even worse the past few months. Maybe some royal crisis came up that Star didn’t know about?

She was about to leave for school when her dad poked his head around the corner, much to her surprise.

“Star!” he shouted cheerfully, “There you are. My little corncake. I was worried I’d miss you.”

“Hey dad, I’m actually just heading out. What’s up?”

“Off to your little _sanatorium_ again?”

“Yup. All day every day. And it’s just a school, dad. I like going there.” Though it _was_ a little crazy there sometimes, so he wasn’t entirely wrong.

“Yes yes, of course. Well how about you take a ride there with your old man? Or is that too embarrassing?”

“I mean it’s pretty embarrassing, yeah, but… You’re not busy?” Star was skeptical. “You’re _always_ busy.”

“Oh I guess I am these days, aren’t I? Well I have a little time this morning, was hoping we could catch up a bit. I miss my little girl, you know?”

“Yeah that sounds nice. I’m down for some catching up. We gotta go like right now though, or I’m going to be late.”

“Well we can’t have that,” he said, and then bolted out the door to call the driver.

When Star got to the castle gate, the royal carriage was already waiting, and her dad was holding the door for her. She hopped in with a joking, “Thank you sir.” Then her dad told the coachman to take them to the school. He even remembered the name of it this time.

It really was embarrassing to show up to school in this thing, though. Star normally just took the bus or rode her bike (depending on how late she was). Janna would definitely give her a hard time about it, but whatever, it was nice to hang out with her dad for once, even if it was only for a little commute.

On the ride over, in the middle of a conversation meandering around the weather and the kingdom’s affairs, her dad suddenly stopped talking to look Star over. He had a huge, warm smile that crinkled up his whole face.

“My little girl’s gotten so big.”

“What? No. Come on, dad.” Star joked, “Pretty sure I’ve always been this size.”

“No no, I remember it like it was yesterday. The years just disappeared like smoke in the wind. You used to be so small you could fit in the palm of my hand. Used to juggle you like a hock of pork-chev until your mother intervened. You were so little that you could get away with hiding in my pack – and you did! Almost snuck your way into a live combat once. I turned away for a moment and you just crawled right in, ready for a fight. Can you imagine? I told your mother that you would’ve turned the tide of battle with your tenacity and your cute little smile. The enemy would have fallen to their knees at the sight of you. You’re a gift, you know, a real treasure. You make me proud.”

Star could feel her face getting warm. This really was getting embarrassing. “Thanks dad.” It was a little suspicious though. As much as her dad loved her, he didn’t usually gush about it like this. “What’s with you today? Everything okay?”

“Yes, yes. Don’t worry about your old man. Just a lot of running around like madmen in the castle, trying to tie some things up before you come back. The real madhouse is the meeting hall, Star. But don’t worry, it’ll all be ready for you when you’re done with this school thing. We’ll have it all shiny and new, bring back that fresh new kingdom smell.”

“Right.” An uneasiness was growing in Star’s gut, “Thanks.”

“No need for that! It’s wonderful that you’re taking over, we’re happy to put in a little work for you. Knowing the kingdom is in safe hands is quite the feeling. I can finally let go of all my stress and retire to a life of luxury and relaxation. I think I’ll take one of those ‘cruises’ the humans do. Fight some terrible sea creatures for a change of pace, really take a swan dive out of my element and get the adrenaline pumping!”

Star tilted her head to the side and gave her dad an incredulous look, “You’re already living a life of luxury and relaxation, dad. You know that, right? I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get any better than goofing around in a huge castle while mom fixes everything.”

“Ha! You’re only seeing one side of it, corncake. You have to put on a face for the people, you see – even for your mother. Even for you. No matter how rough it gets, you have to make it look easy. I won’t spoil the surprise for you, but let’s just say it might not all be as fun as your old man makes it look.”

Star rolled her eyes, “Oh darn. I never imagined running a whole kingdom might be hard. You definitely had me fooled.”

“That’s how it is! You’d never know it, though. I’m just that _good_ at what I do.” Her dad hadn’t picked up on the sarcasm. “Shame to walk away from it, really, but it’s time for some young blood to take over. Your mother disagreed at first, but she came around eventually. Put up a real fight, though. She has such a hard time letting go, but we both agreed that it’s the right way forward for the kingdom. I know you’ll do great. We both do. And we’ll be around to lend a hand if things get hairy – at least for a few years. You’ll have to fly on your own one day I suppose.”

That uneasiness had crawled up into Star’s throat, “You make it sound like I’m taking over right away.”

Her dad didn’t respond. He just looked at her with that same unshakeable pride on his face. Then suddenly it dawned on Star what was happening and that sick feeling in her throat shot all the way up into her head.

“No,” she said, pleadingly.

“Sweetie, it’s time. You’ll be fine.”

“No! No, I can’t be ready for that! I thought I was coming back for more training or something, not to be the queen!”

“You’ve got nothing left to learn, corncake. Better you get started early while we’re still around to help. That’s what your mother wants to give you. It’s a luxury she never had, you know.”

Star couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This was _not_ what she signed up for when she made that arrangement with her mom.

“I can’t believe you guys…” She put her face in her hands for a moment to collect herself. This was the reason he’d been sent to talk to her. This was the reason they’d been so busy lately. It wasn’t fair to just spring this on her like this. On the ride to school?? Seriously?

Star frowned and defiantly asked, “So what!? What would you do!? If I just… just—” she almost went all in on lashing out at her dad, but she caught herself before she said anything stupid. She looked at the floor of the carriage and rubbed her arm uneasily, deflated but still fuming, “What happens if I don’t come back, then?”

“Well don’t do that, corncake. After all the arrangements your mother’s made for your coronation, she certainly wouldn’t be _pleased_ you can count on that. I bet I’d get the blame for it, too! ‘ _She takes after you_ ,’ she’ll say, like she always does when you get into trouble – but you know, every time she says that, it just reminds me how good a job I must have done as your father, for you to confound her so often.”

“So… _you’d_ get in trouble if I bailed on this? How is that fair?”

“Oh I’m sure it wouldn’t be any more trouble than spilling a glass of wine on one of your mother’s silk rugs again. A big mess, but nothing that can’t be fixed with some vinegar and hard work. Why? Are you planning to run off on us? A big adventure? Seduced by the humans’ cruises? I wouldn’t blame you. Unlimited drinks and food! Where do they keep it all?”

“No…”

Star took a deep breath and held it.

What did it matter, really? Two months. Two years. Two decades. She’d be tied to this no matter when it happened. Her dad was right – it’d be better to screw things up now while she still had her parents around. Maybe no amount of training would be enough to really be prepared. And she had to face the reality of it: the human side of Mewnearth wasn’t for her. Living in Echo Creek forever with her friends was always just a fantasy. A fantasy she was lucky enough to live for a few years, but maybe it was time to move on, to grow up. She just wished she could grow up on _her_ terms, on the path _she_ wanted to follow.

Star let out her bated breath in a long sigh before she responded, “No, I don’t have any plans. It’s fine. You’re right. I made a promise to you guys.” She pinched the skin on her arm until it hurt, “I’ll… I’ll keep it.”

By the time they got to the school, Star was feeling pretty uncomfortable in that little box with her dad. Still, she gave him a half-hearted hug and an ‘I love you’ on the way out the carriage door. That ride was supposed to be fun, but instead she was left feeling betrayed and hopeless. What a miserable morning. First Janna’s post, now this. Maybe today was just going to be one of those days.

When Star sat down next to Janna, she was met with a big grin and a bit of playful sarcasm, “Love your ride, dude. No bike today?”

“No, no bike today. My dad wanted to give me a ride.”

“Aw, Star loves her daddy.”

Star replied sharply (maybe a little too sharply), “I _do_ love my dad, thanks. And the carriage is actually pretty cool. It’s got a little icebox full of soda and the coachman is super nice.”

Janna backed off a bit, “Okay, just kidding around dude. Grumpy today, huh?”

“No,” Star lied, “Just… lots on my mind, alright? Big old future ahead, you know?”

“Oh, I know.” Janna smiled at Star again, looking very proud. “Did you see my new wall piece?”

“That letter from the university? Yeah.” Star relaxed a bit now that she wasn’t being put up against the ropes, “Why’d you hang it up, though? I’ve never seen anyone frame a boilerplate letter before.”

“It’s my first acceptance letter, Star! I’ll treasure it forever. Until I need the frame for something else.”

“Did you even apply anywhere else, though?”

“Oh, no. No, I’m not leaving Echo Creek, are you crazy? I love it here. Have you _tried_ the tacos in the big city? Awful. And we have _two_ castles here – walking distance from the mall. Ancient ruins everywhere now. I’ll probably get to mess around in them for extra credit in this program, too. And I’ll finally be back on the same campus as Marco, so I can get back to the very important business of adding a little torment to his every waking moment. Not gonna lie: felt like my _raison d’etre_ was snuffed out when he bailed on us.”

Janna really had it figured out for herself, huh? At least Star could rest easier knowing _one_ of her friends was sticking around. Well and Marco, obviously, but she still needed some other besties to hang out with. Especially with all the stress her new ‘career’ was going to give her.

Star was suddenly struck with a burning question for Janna: “What would you have done next year if you didn’t get in?”

“Oh uh. Probably hit up the community college? Or, I dunno, forge some documents and get a job at the library? Doesn’t really matter though, dude. I did it. I’m in. My future is officially going according to plan.”

Star sighed, “Lucky you.”

Then she realized that the classroom was strangely quiet. Eyes forward, she finally noticed that Miss Skullnick was staring at her and Janna with a silent scowl.

And now that they had stopped talking, Skullnick sarcastically asked, “Are you just about done, then? Can I continue the announcements?”

Star mumbled a quiet apology, and Skullnick carried on with her bulletins for the class.

“There will be no classes this afternoon—”

The room erupted in cheers.

“That doesn’t mean you can go home! As I have been reminding you all for weeks now (but I’m sure you’ve all forgotten because why on earth would you listen to me), Mr. Candle and I have been working very hard on putting together a career fair for the graduating class. I told him _some of you_ weren’t satisfied with our career advice so far, so here’s a chance for those of you who haven’t picked out a school or a job yet to see what’s out there.”

Half the class raised their hands in unison, and Skullnick pointed to Brittney to go first.

With more than a little indignation, she said, “It’s actually a tradition in my family to go to Harvard, Miss Skullnick, and I’ve already been accepted. Can I just go home? This sounds like a waste of time.”

The rest of the kids with their hands up chimed in with a chorus of, “Yeah!” and one anonymous shout of, “Let us go home!”

“No! No one will be going home. Today you will explore the multitude of other possibilities for your future. The average person changes careers _five times_ in their life, and it would be criminal of us to let you leave here fixated on only one career. Your dreams will be shattered over and over again, going from Plan A to Plan B, from Plan B to Plan C, and so on until you’ve all but given up. And when that happens, you’ll be glad you took the time to consider other options. So go look at what else is out there. Come back with five plans – A through E. Write a report explaining those plans in _detail_ – what, why, and how. Due date is next Friday.

“Alright enough of that, let’s get into yesterday’s trig homework…”

Hearing the agenda for the afternoon, Star kind of wished she’d stayed home. She totally forgot about this thing. Seems like most of the class did too.

When lunch rolled around, she packed up her bag and waited for Janna to do the same so they could eat together.

But as soon as they got out into the hall, Janna turned to Star, “So we’re bailing, right? I want to go stake out that spooky antique shop by the bridge. It’s got super unpredictable hours, but maybe today will be the day. Who shops there, Star? Who’s looking for antiques at entirely random times of day? How do they know when to go? There’s something going on there. I have to know.”

Star watched as the majority of her classmates dropped their books off in their lockers and just headed out the front door.

She thought back to what her dad had asked her. _Did she have any plans_? Even a Plan A? Being queen this summer felt like a _Plan No Thanks_. But from the way her dad was talking, she got the feeling that maybe if she came back to her parents with something else, something big… It’s not like her mom _wanted_ to stop being queen, right? And her dad would back her up for sure. He always did. They wouldn’t accept a ‘no’, but they might accept an ‘I’ve got other stuff going on.’

“I think I’m gonna stick around here, actually,” Star said.

“Weird. Suit yourself, dude.” Janna shrugged and gave a pointed wave. “I’m out.”

“See ya.”

After a lonely lunch in the cafeteria, Star went over to the gym on her own. She found only about ten kids had stuck around. They were wandering around checking out the booths, asking unenthusiastic questions, reading the displays. Each booth seemed to have a couple of representatives. There were a bunch of colleges and universities, the army had a booth, a couple of call centers from the city were recruiting. It was probably a lot of work to put this together, but still, the energy in the room wasn’t especially inspiring. And how this was supposed to keep them busy all afternoon was a mystery.

While she was scanning the room, Star spotted Jackie reading through a pamphlet in front of a display board for a school of dentistry. She wandered over to start a conversation, maybe get some advice on some cool human careers. If anyone would know cool, it would be Jackie.

Star peeked over Jackie’s shoulder at the colorful pamphlet. It was covered in drawings of a cartoonish tooth mascot for the school.

“So uh…” Star started, “You’re into teeth, huh?”

“Oh, hey Star. Yeah… no. Not really.” Jackie returned the pamphlet to its pile with a sigh. “Just trying to find _something_ , you know?”

“Totally, totally. Very familiar with that feeling right now.”

Jackie led the way over to another booth while she talked with Star.

“My parents are kind of getting on my case about not picking a school yet,” she continued, “And Miss Skullnick’s rant about Plan A and B and all that, it’s fine I guess, that probably works for a lot of people, but… I don’t know, I don’t think I want _any_ kind of plan. I just want to roll with whatever and see what happens.”

Star shrugged and tried to offer some advice, “You could still just see what happens with a plan, though, right? It’s just a little more… anchored, I guess?”

“More like tied down. Locked in. Caged up. But I want to live my life with all my doors and windows wide open.” Jackie pointed at the pile of pamphlets at the next booth – one for a massage therapy school in another little town, “This kind of stuff closes tons of doors. Forever. Not my scene.”

Star kept trying to be helpful as best she could, “You could travel for a while? Lots to explore out there. Countries. Just… countries everywhere.”

“I guess. But if I’m going to be traveling, I’d really want Chloe to come with me. That kind of thing is always more fun when you’ve got someone else with you. But… she’s doing prep school for a couple years, and then going to one of the prestige universities in Paris. So, yeah, traveling is kind of out.”

“Huh, yeah, that’s a long time to wait. Why don’t you just go stay with her? It must suck being apart like this anyways. And if you’re not doing anything else—”

“Mm… no… I mean I’d love to, but her situation’s kind of complicated. She’s not… uh… _out_. It’d be kind of weird for her family if her ‘very good friend’ from America came over and slept in her room for a few years.”

“Oh. Right. That’s a thing, huh? I always forget that’s a thing.”

Jackie smiled sadly, “Lucky you.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. It just means I have to find something to do with myself until she moves out on her own or finishes school. But if I get a good job here, I might like it so much that I get stuck in America. Or if I go to school, I might hate it and waste a bunch of time and money. And if I just hang out or travel, then I’ll be… I don’t know, I think I’d be disappointing some people. Chloe, at least. And myself, I think. I don’t really want to end up being just another trophy wife who can’t do anything useful, you know? She deserves better than that. Man, honestly, _I_ deserve better than that.”

Star reached out and touched Jackie’s arm to try to comfort her a bit, “Hey, it’s going to be fine. Look, I’m in the same boat as you. No idea what’s coming next, and kind of scared about it, but it’ll work out.”

“Weren’t you supposed to go back to being a princess or something?”

“Yeah. But… the more I think about it, the more that plan kind of sucks. I need something else in case it doesn’t work out. And I’m _pretty sure_ it’s not gonna.

“Skullnick said we’re supposed to have four more careers lined up after the first one fails, right? And maybe she’s right, maybe there’s a Plan A or a Plan B or whatever in one of these brochures somewhere – maybe even one that doesn’t feel like a cage.” Star took Jackie by the wrist and led the way to another booth, “Come on, let’s go check out the rest of these things. I’m sure we’ll find something that doesn’t suck.”

Jackie smiled a bit and let herself get pulled along after Star.

The two of them spent the rest of the day hopping from booth to booth, asking recruiters and representatives about the best and worst parts of their careers on offer, and filling their bags with tons of promotional literature from each station. They decided that if it came down to it, they could just set up a corkboard and let a game of darts settle their fates.

Jackie thanked Star for hanging out all afternoon. “You’re a good friend, you know that? I hope you figure something out for next year.”

“Hey, same to you. See you tomorrow. Oh! And don’t let your parents push you around, okay?”

“You got it boss.” Jackie waved goodbye, dropped her skateboard on the sidewalk, and rode off down the street, leaving Star alone with her thoughts.

Thoughts that were not especially cheerful. Even after spending the whole afternoon drowning in career options, Star still found herself sulking the whole walk over to Marco’s place. For all the encouraging things she had to say to Jackie, Star was still feeling stuck herself. She was holding out for some future that would set a fire in her heart, and nothing today really jumped out at her.

She knocked on the Diazes’ front door and was promptly greeted by a very cheerful Mr. Diaz, who as usual insisted that she didn’t need to knock, that she was family, and that she would always be welcome. But, comfortable as she was with their family, it still felt kind of weird just barging into their home unannounced.

“Come on in!” Mr. Diaz insisted, “Marco’s upstairs. Dinner’s in an hour or so – depending on how tough that chicken was. If she went out fighting, I bet she takes longer in the oven.”

Star smiled. “Thanks Mr. Diaz. Looking forward to it.”

Even if her real family didn’t have time for her these days, she really did always feel welcome here, and they always left a spot for her to join them for dinner.

She went upstairs and shouted down the hall, “Marco I’m coming in!”

“Don’t!” he shouted back, “It’s a mess in here!” He ran out the door before Star could get there and quickly closed it behind him.

“What do you mean ‘a mess’?” She was very skeptical. “You expect me to believe that? What are you hiding?”

“Nothing!” Marco spread out his arms to block the hallway. “It’s just a mess!”

“No way, come on.” Star tried to get past him, but he kept moving to block her. “Did you get burgled or something?”

“No, I’m just doing some spring cleaning, and I’m at the part where everything is spread out all over the floor. It’s absolute chaos in there, and if you saw my room like that, you’d never forget.” Marco shook his head, “I can’t live like that.”

Star smiled mischievously, “Well now you’re just making me want to see it even more.”

With renewed determination, she faked Marco out by juked left, then faded right, and then grabbing the chest of his hoodie and giving it a little tug forward. That put Marco off-balance enough that she could dodge past his defenses. Then she bolted for his door and called back, “This is a thousand-year comet! My room might never be cleaner than yours ever again.”

She flung open the door, and it was true. A real mess. In Marco’s room. Oh, what a glorious sight. Childhood drawings. Annotated textbooks. Stuffed animals! Photos! It was a treasure trove of Marco Diaz paraphernalia. She quickly ran in and slammed the door behind her.

Marco rushed to stop her, but he was too late. Star had already set the lock on the handle.

He knocked insistently, “Star! Star what are you doing?”

“Looking at your stuff!”

“No come on! Let me in!”

Star didn’t answer. She was already elbows-deep in Marco’s half-packed boxes, pulling up old baby blankets and toy blocks and handprints in clay.

Marco kept knocking and pleading, “Don’t touch anything! I have it all organized!”

“It doesn’t look organized! Looks like a nostalgia bomb went off in here!”

After a short while, Marco stopped knocking and yelling. Star could hear him walking down the hall in a hurry and then rushing back, followed by the sound of him fiddling with the doorknob until… click.

He entered the room triumphantly, holding a nail up in the air.

Star whined at him, “Aw come on, that’s not fair.”

“Barricade the door next time. These locks are a joke.”

She pouted, “Are you gonna kick me out?”

Marco sighed. He could never say no to the pouty face. “No it’s fine. What do you want to see? My collection of embarrassing crayon scrawls? Every single handwritten note my parents sent with my lunch? No wait, I know.” Marco shifted some boxes around with purpose, then held up one in particular, “This is the one for you. You’ll love these.”

He cleared some space on his bed for Star to sit down and handed her a repurposed box that used to contain a toaster.

“What is it?” she asked while unfolding the flaps on top. Inside she found at least a dozen spiral notebooks.

“Diaries.”

Star looked at him with disbelief, “Really? You’re just giving me this?”

“Yeah go ahead, you already know the most embarrassing stuff that’s in there anyways.”

“No way. Really really? I can read these? Your deepest darkest secrets?”

Marco nodded, “It’s all yours. Will that keep you entertained for a bit while I finish putting all this away? I need to get my dignity back.”

“Tidy away. But… you should know, this beautiful sight has been burned into my memory. Sorry buddy.”

“I knew it. You’ll never look at me the same way again.”

“Aw Marco I’m just kidding,” she said, and put the box aside to leap up and give Marco a big hug and a loving kiss on the cheek, “You’ll always be a weird neat freak in my book.”

Marco smiled, “Promise?”

She gave him another kiss as proof and replied in a soft voice, “Yeah, I promise. You dork.”

She threw herself back on the bed, gleefully grabbed the first diary from the box, and then rolled over onto her elbows to read it.

Meanwhile, Marco contentedly returned to filing his things away in boxes that were all freshly labeled with the theme of their contents and the date. He really was kind of fanatical about staying organized. It was so easy to get him riled up. Star loved it.

She flipped through the diary with a smile on her face, occasionally cooing at how cute little Marco’s prose and drawings were. He had a lot of big things to say about the world for such a little guy. Solutions to grocery store lines (bigger conveyor belts, more energetic cashiers, moving sidewalks), advice for his dad’s art (more red, more suns, more cubes), and thoughts on household safety (why aren’t there carpets everywhere?) He must have been eight when he started this one, and he faithfully wrote in it every single day – unless he was stuck camping and couldn’t bring it along, in which case the next entry always contained a profuse apology addressed to the book itself, like he’d betrayed it by neglecting it.

And every single entry started with something about Jackie Lynn Thomas. He abbreviated her name to JLT most days, but sometimes he wrote it out fully in flowing cursive, decorated with flowers and hearts, and repeated enough times to fill an entire page.

“You really were obsessed with Jackie, huh?”

“I really was obsessed with Jackie, yes. Kids are weird, okay? Weren’t you obsessed about anything when you were a kid?”

“Uh. Well. This… maybe this sounds weird, but I feel like I wrote about my dad a lot in my diary when I was little.”

“Yeah that checks out.”

“What? Why?”

“Come on Star, you’re as much a daddy’s girl as I am a neat freak.”

She felt a little flush at being read so easily. “Well what _ever_ , Marco. At least I was obsessed with a real hero and not some girl I barely talked to.”

“Yeah. You got me there.” He paused to think for a moment before he continued his work, “Man, I haven’t read those things in ages. Anything interesting in there?”

“I don’t know about _interesting_. Weird, though. Lots of that. Like, here: looks like you changed your favorite color every day for a couple of months when you were nine. Looks like it had something to do with the color of Jackie’s shirt.”

Marco sighed at his younger self, “Sounds right.”

“Aw, look, you were terrified of your bike when you started riding it. There’s some bad drawings of it trying to kill you. Oh and look, here’s _why_. You felt betrayed when your dad,” Star paused dramatically and took on a lecturing tone, “Let go of your seat. Without telling you.”

“Oh man, I totally forgot about that. I can’t believe he did that to me! Can you believe it? My own dad almost killed me.”

Star looked at him with disbelief in her eyes and flatly asked, “Now why does that sound familiar?”

“Oh. Oh, I did that to you, didn’t I?” The realization put a very serious look on his face. “I’ve become the villain.” He looked pretty sorry and somber for a moment there, but then tried to defend himself, “It worked, though, didn’t it?”

Star read verbatim off the page, “ _I almost died! My own dad almost killed me! To death! I’ve never felt so betrade_. You spelled ‘betrayed’ wrong there, by the way.”

“Thank you. I’ll let my past self know to look out for that one on the spelling test.” Marco stuck his tongue out at Star playfully.

“Also looks like you _really_ wanted to be a doctor. You put that in here a lot.”

“Yeah. _Abue_ – nanna – she was sick a lot when I was real little. I probably thought I could help her or something if I was a doctor. And then she got better, and I was just struck by how they helped her. I guess it just stuck with me.”

Star smiled at him, “That checks out.”

“What? Why?”

“The Safe Kid wanted to keep people safe? Go figure.”

Marco looked a little flustered, “Why do I feel like I’m on trial here? Do I need to take those away?”

“No! I’ll read quietly. So sensitive.”

As Star continued reading through Marco’s diaries, there were two sentiments that were pretty consistent in every book. 1: Jackie was great, and 2: Marco wanted to be a doctor. A lot. Every single time he was writing about his future, he mentioned it. It got to the point that he stopped saying ‘ _if_ I become a doctor’ and started saying ‘ _when_ I become a doctor’, like nothing would get in his way. By the time he was twelve, he had a ten-year strategy for finishing medical school early.

Star marveled at the level of detail in his plan, “Boy, you really had your whole life together early, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“ I dunno, some people in our class don’t even know what they’re doing _this summer_ , but you had this huge plan for med school all mapped out when you were just a kid. That’s crazy.”

“Huge plan? Can I see? I wonder how I did.” Marco looked over the notes he’d written and nodded along like he was checking items off a shopping list. “Nice,” he had a satisfied look on his face when he handed the book back to Star. “I’m pretty much right on track. A couple years behind, I think, but I can probably let that slide.”

Star suddenly realized something. “You like… _really_ wanted this, didn’t you? Your whole life was leading up to this. So. Um. What if… What would you have…” Star paused to try to put the words together right, but she still couldn’t get it to come out properly, “What were you gonna do if… you know… if you couldn’t…”

Marco stopped what he was doing, and the two of them shared a long, silent gaze while he thought about it.

And in that moment, Star realized that Marco really never had a plan at all for what he’d do if the Cleave never happened, if they never got the chance to be together like this. Would he have just given up on this lifelong dream of his? Moved to Mewni? Or if he had to choose… would he have just given up on _her_? Star couldn’t decide which would have been worse. And if she was being honest, if they were just friends, he wouldn’t have really had any reason to abandon his dreams just to stay with her in Mewni. He’d probably do like all of Star’s other Echo Creek friends: the two of them would have just… gone their separate ways.

“What would I have done…” Marco wondered out loud, “I guess I would have just visited you every day, wouldn’t I? Just like we do now, right? It’s not like we would have lost the scissors if the Cleave never happened, right?”

“And if we did lose the scissors? Which side would you rather be stuck on?”

Marco replied without hesitation, “Yours, dude. Your side. I never had a friend like you before we met. I don’t think I ever could have found another one. You’re a thousand-year comet. And I don’t think it could ever have been worth it to cut you out of my life – especially not to chase after the silly dream of an eight-year-old boy who spent every day of his life for _years_ obsessing over a girl he could barely talk to.”

Star frowned at him, “That’s not a silly dream, Marco. You wanted to help people.”

He shrugged with a warm smile, “There’s lots of ways to help people. I just picked the one that was closest to my heart, you know? Could’ve been anything. Still could, actually.” Marco rubbed the back of his head anxiously, “Advanced Cellular Anatomy is a _lot_ harder than I expected when I was twelve. I’m just barely holding on to my A grades this semester.”

Star rolled her eyes, “Only you would look at a B grade as a failure, Marco.”

“Listen, if I had a doctor scoring B’s on my heart surgery, I would be furious. And _probably_ dead.”

Star took the diary back from Marco and read over his plan again a few times. One line stood out to her: _Harvard University_. That one left a bad taste in her mouth for some reason.

Still, she had to smile at Marco’s success. “Well, lucky that you got to do all this stuff. It would really suck if you gave this up…” … _for me_.

Marco stopped what he was doing and sat next to Star on the bed. He put his arm around her waist and pulled her close to snuggle up to her. Why? Did she look sad? She wasn’t trying to look sad.

“I wouldn’t give it up just because someone else told me to. But if it was between hanging out with my best friend and doing whatever this guy thought was cool,” Marco poked his diary dismissively, “It’d go to you every time.”

Was he just saying that? No. No, he was being honest. Star could tell from the way he was holding her, from the look in his eyes and the warmth in his smile.

This thing was a like a busy road, wasn’t it? All that love flowed both ways. She’d never give up on her dreams for someone else either, but… now her dreams always had Marco in them. And he clearly felt the same about her. Star forgot about that sometimes when her thoughts wandered into the sad part of her brain.

“Alright,” Star closed the diary decisively, “Enough diaries. I get the picture. You were right: no surprises in here. You were always an anxious, adorable nerd.”

Marco rolled his eyes and gave her a playful little shove, “No, please, tell me how you really feel. I can take it.”

Star put the books back in the box as neatly as she could – though Marco still had to rearrange them by date before he stacked the box neatly on the top shelf of his closet. When Star looked around the room, she found that Marco had somehow managed to put every stray item away where he thought it belonged. Unbelievable. What a guy.

Marco sat back down on the bed next to Star and gave her a little peck on the cheek. “Love you,” he whispered.

She brought her hand to rest on the back of his neck and turned his face to hers before giving him a gentle kiss. “I love you too. I’m… you know, it’s really cool that you’re here. And I’m here. Yeah, I’m just really happy we’re here.”

“Uh, yeah? You think I couldn’t tell from all the teasing and affection and say, for example, the way you almost had a breakdown there just _thinking_ about us being split apart?”

Star frowned at him a little, “I did _not_ almost have a breakdown, how dare you. I was just considering alternate realities. With melancholy. Perfectly normal.” Something clicked in her head and she suddenly exclaimed, “Oh!”

She remembered the whole reason she came over today – beyond just the usual agenda of hanging out and canoodling.

Star got up to grab her bag, “Speaking of alternate realities—” She dumped the contents haphazardly onto Marco’s bed (which elicited a tiny sigh of disappointment from him after all the time he just spent cleaning up). “—Help me pick out a job,” Star insisted, “I don’t want to be queen anymore.”

Marco replied with a hint of skepticism, “Really.”

“Really! They’re trying to make me do it _this summer_ , Marco. I thought I had more time. But I think if I can find something else to do before then, they won’t be able to drag me into it.”

Marco started picking up random brochures and looking through what Star had on offer.

“There aren’t a lot of schools around here, you know,” he said, “This one’s like three hours away.”

Star plucked it from his hand and dropped it off the side of the bed, “Well we’ll just put that one in the Last Resort Pile then. In fact, if you find any of them that are more than an hour away, just put them down there.”

He gave a little salute, “You got it, boss.”

The two of them flipped through the pile to cull the selection down a bit. By the time they were done, there were only a few options left.

“Okay,” Star held up a pamphlet with a bald eagle on it, “Join the army: pros and cons.”

“Star you don’t want to be in the army, I promise you.”

“What? Why not? I’m great at fighting bad guys.”

“Our army isn’t really… Look, it’s hard to explain, but it’s not the kind of fighting you’re thinking of. Most of our soldiers come back with their minds pretty shattered. It’s not pretty.”

Star grumbled and tossed the pamphlet onto the pile of rejects, “Fine, how about… ship hand on a cruise ship? Free food, lots of travel—”

Marco put his hand on Star’s to stop her, “I don’t think we’re going about this the right way. How about we start with a thing you actually _want_ to do and find something that fits that.”

Star frowned, “Well Marco, the whole reason I’m doing this is because I don’t _have_ a thing I want to do.”

“Well, how about when you were a kid? Everyone had something they wanted to be when they were a kid. Maybe we can just build on that.”

“Oh, uh, hmm,” Star realized she had no idea what the answer to that question was. Her childhood felt like a pretty long time ago. And all her old diaries were stuck in her Secrets Closet, so there wasn’t any way to check what was going through her head back then.

“I honestly don’t remember. I didn’t really have much of a choice in it though, you know? I just had to be queen. If I had a thing at all, it was probably to be a _cool_ queen that actually did _fun stuff_ instead of having boring meetings all day. You know, a classic naïve little Star Butterfly kind of dream.”

Marco snapped his fingers and exclaimed, “Let’s just look in your diary! I need to balance our embarrassment out anyways. Two birds with one stone.”

“As much as I would _love_ you reading all my secrets, all my diaries from back then are sealed away for all time.”

“Oh, they were all in your weird closet?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh. That sucks.”

“Oh I dunno, it has some perks. Now you’ll never get to see all _my_ embarrassing stuff.”

“Well that hardly seems fair.”

“It’s not!” Star put on a dramatic villainous tone, “I will forever hold the upper hand, Marco Diaz! Cower before my knowledge of your ancient secret crush! Also that one time your room was a mess!”

Marco feigned a look of fear, “Oh no. Whatever will I do.”

“You’ll do a better job of pretending to be afraid is what you’ll do, or I’m gonna get you!”

Marco backed away a bit, “Get me?”

“Oh, so close – but that’s still not nearly enough fear, Diaz!” Star lunged for him and dug her fingers into his ribs to tickle him.

“No! Get out of here!” Marco tried pushing Star away, but it was no use. She had him now, squirming and flailing in her hands, and she wasn’t about to let go, not until he admitted defeat. Which didn’t take long.

“Stop! Stop! I give!” he pleaded with her.

Star gave him a devilish smile while she gloated over him mockingly, “Good. You’d be wise to remember my insurmountable power, Mr. Diaz. There’s nowhere you can hide. And if you try, I will find you, and I _will_ get you.”

Then she gave him a little smooch on the forehead to make up for the attack.

Marco tried to regain his composure a bit, then said to Star in a chiding tone, “You villain, I feel so betrayed. That’s b-e-t-r-a-y-e-d, by the way. Just to be clear. I did figure that out eventually.”

Star wasn’t really paying attention to him, though, because a buried memory suddenly surfaced in her mind. She snapped her fingers and excitedly exclaimed, “Wait! Wait wait wait, I _do_ have a diary somewhere.” Star was trying to piece it together. Where was it? She tried to hide it somewhere. This was before she got her Secrets Closet. Outside somewhere? Somewhere her mom couldn’t find it. “I think… I think it’s buried somewhere in the woods?”

“Why would you bury your diary in the woods?”

“My mom was messing with it or something? I’m not sure. It’s kind of fuzzy.”

“Well that’s cool and all, but _somewhere in the woods_ isn’t much to go on. Can you narrow it down a bit? Mewni has, like, a _lot_ of woods.”

Star closed her eyes and tried to bring it out. “We were on a hunt or something. My dad and me. I brought it along to keep it safe I guess?”

“So maybe River knows where it is?”

Star shook her head, “He wouldn’t have known I was carrying it. My diaries were always real secret. And it’s not like we went to the same place every time. We went on like… a _lot_ of expeditions. It could have been on any one of them.” Star thought about it until and idea formed in her mind. Not a good idea, but still, it was something. “Even if he doesn’t know the exact location, though, he definitely knows all the places we went hunting. If I could get a list, all I’d have to do is check every site we set up camp! It’s gotta be buried at _one_ of them.”

Star clapped her hands together with a satisfied look on her face. “Alright. Got a game plan. This’ll be easy peasy now.”

Marco looked skeptical, “This… doesn’t sound easy at all, dude. You want to travel all over the wilderness of Mewni? And to places that _River_ liked to hunt? I can’t imagine the kind of terrifying creatures lurking around out there. Why don’t we just work with your ‘cool queen’ thing? Like, how about… a cool _rock star_? Look, here’s a music school.”

Star crossed her arms at Marco, “You got to have your cool childhood dream. I’m going to figure out what mine was. Hopefully something better than ‘queen’. How about you come with me if you think it’s going to be so dangerous? If you help find it, I’ll let you read it.”

Marco smirked at her, “Giving up your ‘upper hand’ so easily?”

“If it saves me from having to pick one of these jobs with a game of darts? Yeah, totally worth a little embarrassment.”

Marco thought about it for a moment. “How long you think we’ll be gone? A weekend?”

“What? Are you kidding? We’ll need at _least_ a week. Maybe two.”

Marco raised an eyebrow at her, “Are you forgetting about school or…”

“Whatever, people catch up from getting sick all the time. How hard can it be? I’ll just catch up when I get back. And Skullnick will be _elated_ that I’m taking a little break to figure myself out. You should have heard her today. She was going on and on about ‘exploring our futures’ and ‘finding our plans’. I get the feeling she might be projecting some of her regrets on us, you know?”

Marco nodded sadly, “Yeah she had a pretty sad vibe, didn’t she?” He paused to think of an answer to Star’s request, and came back with a firm yes, of course, obviously.

Star pumped her fist in celebration and gave him a big hug. “This’ll be fun! Big camping trip, just the two of us, huddling together for warmth in this kind of miserable spring weather.”

“Yeah, that sounds… pretty fun, actually, yeah. But, here’s the thing: I’ve got reports due. I’m gonna have to cram them tonight if you want me to bail on my classes for two weeks.”

“So?”

“So you’ve gotta get out of here after dinner. I need to focus, and you are very, very distracting.”

“Aw come on, I’ll be quiet.”

“Yeah, but will you stop being cute?”

Star scrunched and twisted up her face with her fingers, “How’th thith?”

Marco put his head in his hands, “Worse. It’s worse.”

Star huffed a bit, “Fine. I guess I can just go home and track down my dad. When can we leave? Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow!?”

“Okay, double tomorrow.”

Marco sighed, “Alright, I think I can work with that.”

“Nice. You’re the best. Now come lay down with me. I gotta get my snuggle fix in before you kick me out.”

Curled up in Marco’s arms, Star closed her eyes. Every thought in her head was replaced with warm fuzzy nothings while she traced random scribbles into Marco’s chest and arms. A peaceful smile lingered on her face even after Mr. Diaz called them downstairs to eat.

Dinner was boisterous as always. Mariposa was casually dropping roasted vegetables off her highchair and onto the floor while Marco tried his best to get her to take the meal seriously. He always spoke to her like an adult, never in baby talk. It was pretty funny to watch, because no matter how anyone talked to her, that kid just did not care to listen at _all_.

After dinner, Star washed the dishes while Marco dried them, and then she sincerely thanked the Diazes for dinner again on her way out – and again she was told that she never needed to thank them for dinner.

“Sorry Mr. Diaz, can’t help it when the food’s so good,” she said with a smile and a wave.

She kissed Marco good night at the door, caught a bus home, then spent the remainder of the night tracking down her dad and hounding him to describe how to find all the hunting grounds and campsites they went to when she was little. He was delighted to help – even though Star refused to explain why she was asking.

And at last, after a wild hurricane of a day, she felt like she was on track to find a way out of this mess with her mom and into a future like her friends had, a future like Marco had – a future that could light a fire in her heart.

She looked at the list of campsites and wondered aloud, “What did you want to be, little Star?”


End file.
